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Monday, August 31, 2015

Melbourne Writer’s Festival 20-30
August 2015

Saturday 22 August

A romantic career

Romance novelists Anne Gracie {Aus}
and Mary Jo Putney {US} joined Kate Cuthbert {Managing Editor Escape
Publishing} to talk about the romance genre and their successful careers
writing romance fiction. It was clear from the start that the audience was full
of romance readers and fans of Gracie and Putney, more so than many of the
other sessions I’ve been to over the years where you get the feeling people may
have taken potluck on a session thinking it may or may not be interesting.
These people seemed to know many of the books the authors were referring to and
when certain ones were mentioned there were appreciative murmurs indicating a
much loved favourite. But it wasn’t just
a warm and fuzzy fan-fest. For aspiring
writers, Gracie and Putney had many tips, one which sticks in my mind was
Gracie’s quote {attributed to both Wilkie Collins nad Oscar Wilde} advising
writers to make them {the readers} laugh,
make them cry and make them wait. All three of the panelists agreed that
visibility is one of the greatest challenges facing writers who want commercial
success and that the advent of the ebook has brought about many opportunities
for creative expansion. Gracie and Putney agreed that for a romance book to
work it must be a great story well told and it must show the power of love over
any adversity. Anne Gracie's latest book is The spring bride. Mary Jo Putney's latest book is Not always a saint.

Greg Sheridan Inside story

Greg was in conversation with
Patricia Karvelas, host of Radio National’s Drive. Sheridan has
recently published a memoir When we were young and foolishwhich looks at his formative years and the many
friendships he made with now prominent politicians. He is close friends with
Tony Abbot after meeting him at university where he also met Peter Costello and
Michael Danby. When he worked at the Bulletin he became close to Bob Carr and
Malcolm Turnbull amongst others and once he left the Bulletin to become a
columnist at the Australian newspaper he was posted to China and worked with
Kevin Rudd. His reply to the question of why he wrote this book was that he
wanted to capture a time and a place {and in particular the threat of Communism
faced at this time}; explain how he reached his view of the world and to tell a
few jokes.

This was a fascinating session,
Sheridan is an articulate speaker with a warm and engaging manner and his
personal views of some of the most powerful men in Australia made for very
interesting listening.

Mark Latham Politicians
as journalists

Everyone has probably heard about
this session on the Saturday evening news. The first few minutes were fine with
Jonathan Green introducing Mark Latham as an economics graduate; a career
politican and leader of the Australian Labor Party from 2003 -2005, a protégé of Gough Whitlam
and until last week a columnist with the Australian Financial Review. Latham
was then asked if he is behind the twitter account @RealMarkLatham which has
been cited as making derogatory and abusive remarks about women. Latham
declined to answer this question and then became abusive towards Green saying
he would not answer any of his questions but would only answer questions from
the audience in a show of “true democracy”. The only problem with this was he
didn’t really answer any of the audience questions either. It was an extremely
hostile session with Latham claiming Green was exhibiting the same kinds on
behavior he was being accused of with his offensive retweets of other people’s
opinions of Latham. A former AFR colleague and someone I think may be involved
in the promotion of his latest book Latham at large tried to calm the situation by asking
Latham to comment on the current state of Australian politics but unfortunately
he had got up a big head of steam and used this question to talk about his
treatment at the hands of the AFR management. A number of people left the
session as Latham swore at various people and continued his bizarre rant.

abc.net.au

After the session, MWF released a
statement saying: "Melbourne Writers Festival was disappointed in Mark
Latham's appearance today. It was not the respectful conversation we value. Mr
Latham's session was booked four months ago. He was invited to speak on the
topic of politicians as journalists."

Toni Jordan {author of Addition and
a great interviewer} revealed that US actor Jennifer Lawrence has just signed
to play Rosie in the film after the rights were sold to Sony. The film and television rights for Big little lies have been snapped up by
Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. Moriarty and Simsion were asked what
people like about their books. For Moriarty it’s humour and about being about
to identify with the characters and for Simsion it’s about laugh out loud
moments and character engagement. The panel discussed books covers;
international audiences, how they write and the joys and fears they face in
trying to write another great book. This was a feel good session, lots of
laughs and insights from three fabulous writers.